Nearly half of the $21 billion that House Democrats added to President Bush’s request for emergency war funding would go to nonmilitary spending and to pork projects.
The supplemental spending bill includes more than $3.7 billion in farm subsidies, $2.9 billion in additional Gulf Coast hurricane relief and $2.4 billion for social programs such as money for rural Northwest school districts, health insurance for poor children, energy assistance for poor families and others.
Why do legislooters do this? Because they can.